Food incompatible with history?

 
Are you around the Italian region of Lombardy or planning to get there to, among other things, experience its wonderful traditional cuisine and enjoy the richness of its provincial recipes? You better plan on that, because with the new regional law proposed by the controversial Northern League, you really would not have much of a choice. 

The Northern League (Lega Nord), the xenophobic Italian party which advocates secession from the south -and part of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s conservative coalition- proposed to restrict from Lombardy’s historic centers the businesses that are “incompatible with the historical context” -such as Chinese restaurants, kebabs, or any other commercial activity that could clash with their historic districts. 

The question would be: are they trying to protect the uniqueness of its heritage intact, or is simply denying the possibility of opportunity to ‘outsiders’? The League is famous for its anti-immigrant -and clearly racist- speeches, interviews, banners and proposals.  For example, one mayor wants to ban illegal immigrants from getting married, another to ban them from being eligible for school scholarships, another to limit Italian citizenship to foreigners with a perfect knowledge of Italian and of the Constitution, and how to forget the recipe for racial harmony proposed by the councillor of the city that me -an outsider- love and consider my second home: if an immigrant commits a crime against an Italian, ten immigrants should be punished for it.

But then again, aren’t immigrants an important work force for any national economy? Isn’t diversity and multiculturalism what makes a society stronger and richer? And after all, aren’t we all immigrants?

The fact is that the Lombardy’s proposal didn’t surprise me that much; last year, some Chinese restaurants in the Veneto region were ordered by the local government to remove red lanterns from their windows because they look, well, they look too “oriental”…

Filed Under Diversity, Food, Human Rights, Politics